The 4 big fears all us men have to face

Commentary: Unless you overcome these obstacles, you won’t enjoy success

Stressed out? Blocked? Too much pressure? Feel something’s holding you back? What’s sabotaging you? Look closely, they’re right there. In front of you. Not deep in your brain, on the tip of your tongue. Maybe hidden a little, but something you already know. Time to face up. Grow up. Conquer the four big fears.

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The harsh reality is that even the most successful men really are not free.

Seriously, you really do know what’s holding you back from a healthy, happy and successful life. Just four fears, brain blocks, mental challenges, psychological handicaps facing everybody, your entire lifetime, until you face reality, fight it, grow up, win.

Want to be free? Truly free? Here’s the way. OK, most people don’t really want to admit they’re being controlled by ghosts of the past. But this is your life. Not just some investment strategy. It’s not just whether you’re an active trader or a buy-and-hold investor.

Breaking free has less to do with your rational mind than with that heavy mental trashcan filled up long ago by mom, dad, childhood traumas, school failures, rejections, loss of loved ones and many other emotional shocks that rewired your brain.

And you’re kidding yourself if you think you’re an adult just because you think you’re making rational decisions. Just today, I’ll bet your brain was quietly digging into your subconscious memory bank, your frontal, cortex for some advice: On a business decision, picking this stock or fund, on making a big deal that proves you’re a hero, on closing a sale to relieve anxieties, on trading for the thrill because you’re bored.

Like it or not, your emotions, feelings, your gut instincts make all your decisions, not the mind, logic, rational analysis. First comes the gut feelings. And they go way back.

Your life-long challenge is simple

The psychology of investing suddenly became quite obvious and simple while driving up the Big Sur coast to Carmel, Calif., a while back. We stopped at the legendary Nepenthe restaurant, high up the Coastal Sierras, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Originally a cabin retreat for Rita Hayworth and Orson Wells. We’re heading up again. This weekend.

The long winding road is relaxing. Best meditation ever. Got to thinking about an earlier discovery. In Nepenthe’s Phoenix gift shop I saw a coffee cup with a sketch of Freud lounging on his own couch! Yes, doing the same kind of self-discovery you’ll do.

The caption on the cup: “A Freudian sip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.” That captures everyone’s psyche. What’s psychology got to do with being free, a happy family life, how you invest, make money, enjoy society? Everything. More than you ever imagined. Especially since 95% of all active traders are men. Bottom line, mom is one of your biggest handicaps to career success, portfolio profits, peace of mind in a family.

Take another look at the cup: “A Freudian sip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.” Yes, sip not slip. That subtle bit of humor reminded me of my own earlier days in the field. I’m more Jungian than Freudian. But the messages are all the same: Investors are irrational and clueless about what makes them tick and why they do whatever they do. Discover why, face the four fears, admit, understand, be free.

Wall Street casinos are a big mommy who needs dependent men

Your mind plays tricks: University of Chicago’s top behavioral economist Richard Thaler echoed this same principle in his classic, “Advances in Behavioral Finance II.” Know this: Wall Street “needs investors who are irrational, woefully uninformed, endowed with strange preferences.” So their casinos take advantage of our handicaps, manipulating the mind to make certain even the most logical are kept off-balance, misled with incomplete misinformation, never get strong enough, smart enough or powerful enough to take control of their own decisions, never beat the Wall Street casinos.

So when a market trader tells us of how successful his trading is, how much money he’s making, how his portfolio’s increasing, or we read somewhere that so many male investors are so absolutely convinced their market and business decisions are perfectly logical and rational, or they dismiss an emotional outburst or investing losses as not really them, be reminded of Shakespeare’s brilliant observation, “me thinks he doth protest too much.”

Coming back along the Big Sur coast highway, the power of the irrational became clearer. My wife’s a great psychotherapist. She bought a short book by Jungian analyst James Hollis at Carmel’s wonderful little Pilgrims Bookstore. She read it aloud on the trip back along the winding coast. Hollis writes about the deep “secrets” that motivate all men, a familiar topic from my earlier research on the male midlife crisis.

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